Last night, a religious friend told me about an interesting exchange between Bill Moyers and the female Episcopal bishop, in which the bishop justified discriminating against gays as bishops by saying they would be "crucified." Here’s the exchange:
BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think God is asking us
to build a society where people can live together in peace with a sense
of justice. Where people can develop their gifts to the fullest, where
people can, in some sense, recover their presence in the garden.MOYERS: You’ve even been criticized by some of your
liberal colleagues in the American fellowship because you have called
for a moratorium for a season on ordaining more gay Bishops. Why did
you do that?SCHORI: It was a very painful
thing to do. My sense was that there might be hope of some kind of
broader understanding if we were able to pause. Not go backwards, but
pause.MOYERS:
Is it fair to ask some aspiring gay or lesbian person who wants to become a Bishop, like Gene Robinson did in 2003, to wait?SCHORI:
Is it fair? No. It’s not fair.MOYERS:
But it’s necessary?SCHORI:
It’s a crucified place to stand.MOYERS:
There are some of your dioceses that do not accept your ordination because you are a woman.SCHORI:
There are three [female] Bishops, three diocesan Bishops.MOYERS: Out of how many?
SCHORI:
A hundred and ten.
I find this exchange moving for the following reasons: The bishop is saying that we all live in the world, even religious officials, and though the world has partly accepted women as bishops it hasn’t accepted gays. But it will some day. And, Christ was not the only martyr. The crucifixion happens again and again. She is talking about Jesus as a historical figure, and then sharing that Christ story with gay people now.
From my own liberated Jewish perspective, I would call on Jews to share the Passover story with the Palestinians and share the Israel story with liberal western democracies. We’ve come to a great spot here. Can’t you feel it?
The Quran contains the Exodus story within Suratu-l-baqara, and it is more important that Palestinians share their version of the Israel story with western liberal democracies.
Here is a version of a lecture that I occasionally give on the historiography of pre-state Zionism:
Joachim – Far be it from me to regulate anyone else's blog, but in case you missed it in an earlier discussion, Phil pretty much said you weren't welcome here anymore due to your comments on the holohoax. Now it's up to you and Phil to work this out, and he admitted earlier that he doesn't read the comments section carefully due to a neurotic commplex, so you may be safe in continuing to post here, but as of this point you can't say you haven't been made aware of the issue.
I do not deny the Holocaust. I have done primary research in E. Europe during the 90s. I believe that about half of Jews killed in E. Europe were killed by E. Europeans and liberated Soviet nationalities that were taking some sort of collective revenge for Soviet crimes.
My opinion is hardly new, and it has been articulated by many Jewish people before me.
My opinion is consistent with a lot of the latest work including that of Jan Gross, who published Neighbors.
I have not had the chance to ask Yuri Slezkine, but I suspect that he has a similar opinion. Philip Weiss quotes Yuri Slezkine.
Assigning complete blame for the mass murders of Jews during WW2 to the Germans was cold war propaganda. It would have been harder to generate sympathy for captive nations if the full extent of their autonomous action to murder Jews became public knowledge. Also a debate over who killed E. European Jewry might also have increased anti-Semitism in the USA if more Americans became aware of the role of ethnic Ashkenazim in consolidating the Soviet Union and in the commission of Soviet crimes.
I consider the cold blooded decision to steal Palestine from the native population rather more heinous than the mass murders of Jews in E. Europe, but I make this judgment because a large segment of E. European ethnic Ashkenazim were players in E. European politics and used the power of more capital resources and greater education to harm lots of people in Central Europe, E. Europe and Czarist long before the mass murders started. What did Palestinians do to E. European ethnic Ashkenazim before the Zionist invasion? Absolutely nothing.
In many regards, I am reinterating the opinion of Elchonon Wasserman, who was killed by *Lithuanians* not by Germans in his own opinion as a sacrifice to the crimes both of Soviet Ashkenazim and of Zionist Ashkenazim
"…and used the power of more capital resources and greater education to harm lots of people in Central Europe, E. Europe and Czarist long before the mass murders started"
should have been
"…and used the power of more capital resources and greater education to harm lots of people in Central Europe, E. Europe and the Czarist Empire long before the mass murders started"
The Episcopal denomination is dying, just as are many mainline denominations. This bishop's attitude is part of the cause. She may be moved by being in the world, but she also denies her calling by Christ by allowing herself to be of the world. I think her characterization of homosexuals aspiring to the clergy as being in a "crucified place" is born of bitterness and cynicism. She needs to revisit her earlier statement that everything is not fair. Indeed, and nor does everything need to be fair, despite the hate-filled invective issued by the
"tolerance" aficionados pushing cultural Marxism in schools and in every possible public media.
Practicing homosexuals have no business in positions of church authority. This is clearly and unambiguously supported by passages condemning the practice and the lifestyle in both Old Testament and New.
That was a very good comment, Mr. Martillo, thanks. Of course the jews here will, as always, play mute and innocent on this topic.
"Also a debate over who killed E. European Jewry might also have increased anti-Semitism in the USA if more Americans became aware of the role of ethnic Ashkenazim in consolidating the Soviet Union and in the commission of Soviet crimes."
Is that false? Is that wrong? Will someone answer or will you just ask Joachim to shut up?
Homosexuality in the Greek and Hebrew Bibles
I have to caution that attitudes toward sexuality, conceptualization of sexuality, and vocabulary about sexuality does not map simply from the Hellenistic period to today.
The passages in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles that are believed to address homosexuality have been subject to some of the most questionable renderings in the history of Bible translation.
Senor Martillo-
Thank you for graciously pointing out the flaws you've found riddling the work of, in order, Dr. Kevin MacDonald, Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, and God.
We can only bow to your omniscience.
I probably shouldnt blog about stuff like Christianity, where I have so little understanding. My friend Tony said the following:
"Christianity, by my dim
memory of the message, is a radical and revolutionary philosophy. The
poor have higher standing than the wealthy; there's more concern for
the thief or prostitute than for the scholar or banker. The philosophy
is pushed into the world via the cross. Christ's martyrdom is
essential. I can't say I'm that keen on this as a life-strategy for me
or my kids, but I also can't think of too many other readings of the
Christ story. When the bishop says that it's time to pause in the
effort to achieve justice because those who want it will be crucified,
it does not really sound to me like Christianity anymore. For a high
official of a Christian church to urge patience in the face of
injustice, and to agree to work on the schedule of the oppressor, is
entirely predictable I suppose, but a bizarre reading of what I
understand to be the faith. So, to the ramparts…"
Gosh. My response is that at least the bishop is on a progressive path, struggling forward, and yu cant expect a revolutionary credo to remain that 1900 years after the fact, when it's been institutionalized,
Phil
Can't help but offering this as comment, written by someone far advanced in the Faith:
"The Kingdom of Christ was now expected to take the form of a political kingdom and its splendor. The powerlessness of faith, the earthly powerlessness of Jesus Christ, was to be given the helping hand of political and military might. This temptation to use power to secure the faith has arisen again and again in varied forms throughout the centuries, and again and again faith has risked being suffocated in the embrace of power.
The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision,that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes."
The author? Ratzinger, after he was made Bishop of Rome. Interesting observation, given his own acute awareness of the historical failings of his Church in this regard.